“Just curious.”
“You ought to know.”
“Well, you went away to college, and I don’t know everything you did while you were there.” She didnotsaythank God, but she thought it.
“No. I don’t do the girlfriend thing. Like I said, I don’t see my future including a long-term romantic relationship. It sounds like work. And I . . . Like I said, I love your family. They’ve been very good to me. But when I think about family, the Clays aren’t the first people I think of. I think about being a kid and being shuttled back and forth between my mom and my dad, neither of whom really wanted me. It was kind of the opposite of a healthy custody exchange. My mom didn’t run to hug me and welcome me home. It was more like:You again. I put a damper on hersocial life. And as far as my dad . . . If he liked having me with him at all, it was because it gave him someone to bully. That’s not better.”
Her heart went tight. “No.”
“I would never put a kid through that.”
“But you’re not your parents.”
“That’s the question I have, Lydia. What makes you into a person like them?”
She didn’t have it in her to be irritated at him now. Because this wasn’t about her crush, her issues, the things she projected onto him.
“Do you think that your dad would ever have taken in a dog like Hank, let him sleep on the couch, then fried him up a hamburger?”
“I guess not.”
“Do you think your mom would ever add to her workload by offering to take care of three extra horses that she didn’t even need?”
“Well . . . no.”
“And do you think that either of them would’ve had the discipline you did in school? To take advantage of all the opportunities you had. Do you think they would’ve planned their future meticulously the way you did, invested their time and energy into the sorts of pursuits you took up?”
“The ability to make money has nothing to do with character.”
“Maybe not. I’m sure there are dirt-poor animal rescuers. But what it does show is that you have the ability to think about something other than what satisfies you right that very moment. I think both of your parents can be characterized by their inability to care at all what anyone else wanted from them or needed from them. I think they essentially just cared about their own feelings, and no one else’s. And there are so many things you do that demonstrate you’re not that person.”
“Appreciated, moppet.”
He made it hard. To not love him. To stay mad.
He assembled the burgers, and they sat down at the table. He put the patty he’d cooked up for Hank in a bowl, and the dog settled down beside Remy’s chair.
His use of her childhood nickname made her uncomfortable. A combination of prickly and a little bit . . . Oh, she didn’t want to be aroused. It was because they were in his house, because they were alone.
She didn’t think any of this conversation was going to make him see her differently. But she wanted to shake something up. To shake him up, or maybe just her.
“Well . . . I . . . I’d like to get married someday.” She picked her burger up and took a bite.
“Sure you do. You had a great family. You would be a great mom. I can tell by the way you take care of all those animals. Though I suppose if you only want to have furry children, that would work just as well.”
“I would take both,” she said, her chest feeling sore. She was young to be thinking about children, she knew, but not too young to want to start taking the steps to get there.
“Well, I’ve never had a boyfriend.”
He looked at her, regarding her closely. “Is that right?”
“Yes. And you know, it’s a real problem, being a virgin at twenty-seven. Because how are you supposed to ever make anything happen? At that point, you’re just weird.”
He froze. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just what I said.” She felt foolish for confessing, but he’d talked about his own reputation, and picking up partners with her brother along.
“Actually, if there’s one problem I really feel like I need to solve right now, my virginity is the one.”
